Artists' Directory

Marleene Rubenstein

Artist Statement

Memories and rituals over three thousand years old are part of my daily life, shaping and enriching its practice. By using a specific vocabulary of mixed media I create the visual manifestation of an echo, converting the temporal realm into a material form.

The injunction to remember is a traditional Jewish responsibility. I do this by creating a bridge from the intangible past to a contextualized site in the present. Discarded possessions, shadows, reflections, layering, erasure, wounding and bandaging are all processes that I have chosen as specific vocabularies in my work. My process is often labor intensive, and this creates its own ritual, embedding a temporal reality into experience that is inherently fragile and tenuous. Creating the manifestation of absence becomes both an act of mourning as well as memorial.